Confusion over Palisadoes entertainment zone status

Patrons in attendance at Sandz at 7th Harbour on the Palisadoes Road on Monday.

The Chief executive officer of the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), Peter Knight, has disclosed that the area on the Palisadoes Road in Kingston, where the Sandz party was held Monday, was not approved as an entertainment zone.

Knight told The Gleaner yesterday that NEPA gave approval to the Ministry of Entertainment, Sports Culture and Gender Affairs for an entertainment zone to be established at Fort Rocky, several kilometres away from where the party was being held.

"The approval that the Town and Country Planning Authority gave to the ministry clearly specified the conditions. That area where the party was being held was not the area that was approved by NEPA," Knight said.

The Sandz party was being held at the Gun Boat Beach along the strip.

However, the Government's information arm, the Jamaica Information Service, reported in 2015 that NEPA had given approval for the Palisadoes strip to be designated an entertainment zone.

Then state minister in the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment Damion Crawford made the disclosure, according to the report.

But Entertainment Minister Olivia Grange is insisting that the Government does not support the decision to hold an event "of that nature" at Gun Boat Beach, having assessed the location and found it unsuitable to be declared part of the entertainment zone.